A response to the April 18, 2024 statement from PEN America president Jennifer Finney Boylan
by Audrey T. Carroll
Ravens are intelligent, can use
tools, so I understand the hesitance
to trust them. After all, they might
not need you, and if they don’t need you,
there’s no telling what such a group might do
if they put their minds to it
We: painted as war hawks, somehow, when we
call for an end to a massacre in real-time
You: the peace-loving dove, good vibes only,
sweet and unassuming and never an unkindness
ganging up on fuzzy squirrels in picturesque Maine
And we could almost forget
what we’re actually talking about
6,000 miles away from here
30,000+ lives away from here
Let’s call a spade a spade,
if cliches are fair play—
You know what hampers transmission of thought
within each nation and between all nations?
Genocide.
You know what engenders hatreds?
Genocide.
You know what supports any form of suppression
of freedom of expression?
Genocide.
Conversation cannot be built on rivers of blood;
understanding cannot be built on rivers of blood.
There is no solid ground to set your feet on,
no fertile soil to grow a dialogue,
when that soil is blessed by bombs
day after night after day after night.
Being queer is not a get-out-of-accountability-free card.
Being queer is not a get-out-of-accountability-free card.
To fit one scaleside with book bans, with efforts
at trans eradication, with threats not just to words
but to people, and then fit the other scaleside
with tens of thousands of lives (no one knows
how many; they’re killing the record-
keepers), the limbs and children and ecosystems and homes lost—
to say “book bans and anti-genocide are the same, actually…”
How can you not see it? Hear it?
Or is it easy enough to ignore?
What kind of art can be created
in a culture in which some voices remain unheard?
I don’t know.
We cannot ask the Palestinians who have been killed.
So how is speaking out against the eradication
of a people the kind of intolerance and cowardice
I am now describing?
How are those who are speaking—at cost of
threats, shaming, arrest, loss
of employment, loss
of housing because they are violating
laws and respectability politics and silence
in the face of atrocity— against the killing
of innocents, against the wiping out of a culture…
How is their compassion intolerance?
How is that solidarity cowardice?
Do you need a minute to redefine the words
to your own ends?
I don’t need a minute:
This is oppressor logic.
It doesn’t feel so good now.
What skills do I have, after all, besides my fundamental belief that we should all, somehow, find a way to love one another, and forgive each other for the mistakes that we have made?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
Is genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake? Is a genocide a mistake?
© Audrey T. Carroll
Audrey T. Carroll (she/they) is the author of What Blooms in the Dark (ELJ Editions, 2024), The Gaia Hypothesis (Alien Buddha Press, 2024), Parts of Speech: A Disabled Dictionary (Alien Buddha Press, 2023), and In My Next Queer Life, I Want to Be (kith books, 2023). Her writing has appeared in Lost Balloon, CRAFT, JMWW, Bending Genres, and others. She is a bi/queer/genderqueer and disabled/chronically ill writer. She serves as a Fiction Editor for Chaotic Merge Magazine and Editor-in-Chief of Genrepunk Magazine.
She can be found at AudreyTCarrollWrites.weebly.com and @AudreyTCarroll on Twitter/Instagram.
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